SACRAMENTO - Californians with developmental disabilities who are cared for at state facilities are being put at risk by outdated policies and inadequate investigations of abuse, the state auditor's office said Tuesday. Allegations that residents have been raped, shot with stun guns and otherwise abused have not been acted on satisfactorily, auditors found. The California Department of Developmental Services cares for 1,480 severely disabled people in five facilities throughout the state.

A $7.6-billion federal program to help homeowners avert foreclosure set too few goals for the 18 participating states and didn't do enough to make sure the nation's biggest banks were on board, according to a government audit. The audit criticized the Treasury Department for rolling out the Hardest Hit Fund with no advance notice in February 2010, then leaving the states to implement it on their own. The report by a special inspector general pointed out that it took seven months before the government met with the states, banks and mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to make sure everyone was participating in the program.

April 22, 2011 | By Hector Becerra and Jessica Garrison, Los Angeles Times

The state controller took the rare step of launching an audit of the struggling city of Montebello, saying there is evidence the city produced false financial reports dating back several years. The action — the first time officials have launched a full city audit since examining wrongdoing in Bell last year — marks an ominous turn for Montebello, which is in danger of running out of money to pay its bills later this year. The working-class city east of downtown Los Angeles has been mired in budget problems and allegations of mismanagement and missing money for months.

Civic leaders in Irvine have authorized the use of subpoenas to help auditors delve deeper into an investigation of the financial management of the Orange County Great Park. The City Council voted 3-2 Tuesday to move forward with a forensic audit after a preliminary report raised questions about spending, contracts and oversight of the 1,300-park, which has been in the works for more than a decade. Council members Larry Agran and Beth Krom, who helped steward the project from its beginnings until they lost the council majority in the city's 2012 elections, denounced the decision, which Krom called a “witch hunt.” Great Park: where did all the money go?

The Department of Animal Services has become an unruly place where equipment is unaccounted for, at least $125,000 is missing and up to $1.3 million in potential revenue was overlooked over the last two fiscal years, a new report has found. The audit, conducted over two years and released Tuesday, describes policy and possible ethics breakdowns across the agency, with particular focus on poor supervision and management. In one example, department officials could not show investigators whether donations were spent legitimately.

NEW YORK - For decades, the U.S. government has stashed gold five stories beneath Manhattan in a vault under the Federal Reserve's fortress near Wall Street. Or has it? Some conspiracy theorists suspect that the billions of dollars' worth of bullion might have been looted in a dramatic heist, a la the movie "Die Hard: With a Vengeance. " Others claim that the gold has been used in a shadowy government transaction, or swapped with gold-painted bars. It's even caught the attention of politicians like Rep. Ron Paul and members of Germany's Parliament.

A community coalition formed after the Dodger Stadium beating of Bryan Stow called Thursday for a government audit of the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control because the agency has not issued a citation at the ballpark since the 1990s. "It seems like they're just ignoring the problem," Richard Zaldivar, who launched the coalition, said of the ABC's response to growing complaints about drunken hooliganism at the stadium. The Times reported last month that the ABC, the authority that enforces alcohol-licensing rules, last cited a Dodger vendor for a violation in 1999.

SACRAMENTO - Managers at the California parks department circumvented payroll policies and boosted salaries improperly, the state controller said Tuesday. Controller John Chiang said the payouts were made with "deliberate disregard for internal controls, along with little oversight and poorly trained staff. When security protocols and authorization requirements so easily can be overridden, it invites the abuse of public funds. " Chiang said that bad record keeping in the department made it impossible to determine a total for the amount of money improperly paid.

WASHINGTON — Hoisting a once-fringe issue into the political mainstream, the House overwhelmingly approved a long-fought proposal by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) to require an audit of the Federal Reserve. Not only tea party stalwarts but also rank-and-file Republicans and dozens of Democrats voted for the measure Wednesday — a reflection of the rising influence of the former presidential contender's brand of libertarianism on American politics as he prepares to leave Congress. Rep. Jim Matheson, a Utah Democrat who is in a tough reelection battle, said in a tweet that he would vote for the bill.

It took Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies a minute longer to respond to emergency calls from unincorporated parts of the county than from cities that contract with the department for police services, according to a county audit. The finding comes days after Supervisor Gloria Molina accused Sheriff Lee Baca of "stealing" police resources from residents in unincorporated neighborhoods and threatened to hire "independent private patrol cars" to backfill cuts in sheriff's patrols.